Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday May 05, 2011 @01:12PM
from the and-we're-here-to-help-you dept.

theodp writes "The Hill reports that the Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive. The plan is a part of the administration's 'Transportation Opportunities Act,' and calls for spending $200 million to implement a new Surface Transportation Revenue Alternatives Office tasked with creating a 'study framework that defines the functionality of a mileage-based user fee system and other systems.' The office would be required to consider four factors — the capability of states to enforce payment, the reliability of technology, administrative costs, and 'user acceptance' — in field trials slated to begin within four years at unspecified sites. Forbes suggests the so-called vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax should be called the Rube Goldberg Gas Tax, because while its objective is the same as the gas tax, the way it collects revenue is extremely complex, costly and cumbersome." The disclaimers are thick on the ground, though; note, this is an "early draft," not pending legislation.

I know this sounds conspiratorial, but I have to wonder that the point is in things that have been happening recently. It can't solely be money/environment... can it?

It feels like they are trying to take away our will to travel. The TSA making people not want to fly, higher oil prices (yeah, this may not be in their control...), more taxes on vehicles (like this proposal), lack of upkeep on the highways (at least around the Midwest that I've noticed...) It almost feels like there's a movement to imprison

And you know why we're getting this stupid idea? Because of the American Public's obsessive opposition to a proper gas tax. Grow a pair, and start to accept that a gas tax is the simplest, most obvious way to fund the highway system. And if anyone's worried that trucks will be driven into the ground because of inordinate gas prices, you could even have a tiered system at the pump, where someone who purchases 100 gallons in one block pays a different tax than someone who purchases 5 gallons. But this approach is the single worst way of getting people to fund the maintenance of the roads. And anyone who complains about this better first look in the mirror to check whether you are willing to support paying for infrastructure to begin with. Because the reason this is even considered is that a gas tax is demonstrated political suicide.

Trucks should pay even more. They do the most damage to the road. If that is too expensive than let goods go over roads the companies pay for. You will find they choose nice smooth steel roads and steel wheels.

I am fine with either, subsidizing trucking does nothing but break the market for transportation. This is a problem the free market is extremely well suited to solving. By not charging each person for the cost of their travel, including those who use it to ship goods, we are preventing the market from properly functioning.

Realistically this is a complete non-issue. This is like some guy in a cubicle in the White House said "Hey, you guys think we should look at this?" and it never went anywhere. We might as well get excited becasue some Congressmen mentioned a wanting to make fish illegal in a restaurant with a buddy.

Fact: The principle driver of unemployment in this country right now is the construction industry. The near destruction of the housing market caused almost the total layoff of every single construction worker. Construction accounts for nearly 10% of GDP. If all the construction workers were put back to work the economy would likely come out of recession within a year.

Wasn't that $760 Billion stimulus for "shovel ready projects" supposed to take care of that? Has the problem been fixed?

Fact: Without firm long term commitments the states are unwilling to commit their own funds to projects where federal supplemental dollars aren't guaranteed.

How about we cut the gas tax to a level that will only maintain the US Interstate system and let the states fix their own roads? Why do all 50 states need to send their money to the feds so the feds can turn around and give it back? If the states don't want to pay for their road maintenance, then that state's roads will suck. What gives the feds the right to withhold federal road funds

How is forcing people to pay for the usage of the road a bad idea?
Sounds great to me, drive more pay more and if that's a problem find alternatives or live closer to where you work. I'll never understand this god give right to the automobile in this country.

The problem isn't taxing for road usage(in fact, were it not for the culture that you mention, such a proposal would theoretically be equally desireable for conservatives(who tend to like "users fees" because they dislike taxes and dislike the possibility that people might end up being subsidized)) and liberals(who tend to suspect that individual-vehicle transport, especially the petro kind, has been the recipient of massive, if not overt, subsidies for pretty much the entire post WWII period, making possible an entire suburban material culture that cannot exist without those subsidies).

The problem with mileage taxes is with administration, enforcement, and mission creep. Unlike, say, fuel taxes(which have the fairly convenient advantage of approximately taxing a composite of vehicle size and vehicle miles traveled, which is a good rough estimate of vehicle road 'consumption', without ever having the tax man leave the shop), mileage taxes require, at bare minimum, the tax man inspecting every vehicle's odometer(or at least a sufficiently large sample that most people report theirs honestly on the 1040v.2). If mission creep or ulterior interests come into play, you could pretty easily end up with GPS black boxes, or other less tweakable(you don't even need to crack the odometer, just ensure that the rotations to miles conversion it is using is based on slightly smaller wheels than you are using) methods.

Employing an overhead-heavy, potentially very invasive, taxation strategy when a simple retail sale tax one would work nearly as well strikes me as a serious problem. The notion that, while many roads are basically natural monopolies, and thus cannot be run on free market lines, one can attempt to make one's payment for road use approximately proportional to their use of roads seems entirely sensible.

Yup. There's been somebody trying to push this to the state governments for a few years. I don't know if they're trying to sell a product to get states to mandate it (or now, Feds), or if they're Federal or state cops trying to get a privacy-invasion technology deployed under the guise of tax revenue enhancement. The proposals that the states have gotten have been for devices that are continuously tracking your location (because after all, if you drive across state borders, your state should only tax you

Almost. Ideally, you'd want heavier vehicles to pay a substantially higher fuel tax. Damage-to-road increases much more quickly than weight of vehicle. This avoids the GPS tracking, but does add to the opportunities for gaming the system. And the tax should go up fast, because it's sum-of-cubic in wheel weights (so a 6000lb car, does 27x the damage of a 2000lb car).

Because mass of the vehicle has a hell of a lot to do with how much damage they do. Mass per axle needs to be taken into account as well as total distance driven.

Which kind of brings us back to the idea of this as basically a more complicated equivalent of a gas tax...

I mean, heavier vehicles will tend to have poorer fuel economy, and obviously if you drive farther you use more gas. If you accept also that it's desirable to encourage people to drive more efficient vehicles when possible, then it really seems like a gas tax is the way to go.

But it's unpopular to do anything that raises the price of gasoline. I suspect that may be why they're looking at alternatives. Tax basically the same thing, but measure it differently so people won't curse you every time they go to a gas station.

I didn't believe what you said, so I searched for some facts. From what I see (here [pavementinteractive.org]), it's actually the fourth power of axle load. It also correlates with speed - slower speeds cause more damage. So this might be the germ of a good idea, though probably hard to enforce and collect fairly.

A gas or diesel tax is relatively simple to measure and collect, and it correlates directly to one quantity that we wish to control - carbon emissions. However, wear and tear on roads is also a measurable expense, and a

You gonna pay a couple of trillion to create a massive mass transit system for us here in the south? No? Well guess what sparky, guess where huge amounts of your food comes from? If we can't afford to drive the long distances to maintain the computers, the machinery, your city ass can go starve.

I probably have to drive a good couple of hundred miles or more some weeks simply helping these small businesses (you know, the things that employ Americans? Yeah those things) and as long as I keep my foot off it m

> If we tax by the mile, the pickup and the hybrid get the same charge, so why> buy a new vehicle? Incentive: old pickup.'

These are Democrats we are talking about. Nothing about it will be simple and in ten years it will go beyond complicated to 'no mortal can know it and stay sane'.

Of course hybrids will get a special rate, probably on day one. Since they want to use a GPS logger they are already planning on taxing based on where and when you drive, even if the initial proposal doesn't mention it. And of course states and cities will be invited to attach to a teat on their new cash cow. Every planner's wet dream of taxing the shit out of rush hour commuters instead of building ever more lanes will come true. When the rural peasants scream about being taxed to death they will get special rates for driving long runs over low traffic rural byways. And because of the fine information detail they will quickly move from taxing just for revenue but to impose social policy.

Right now the automobile is popular because it lets the ordinary citizen go wherever the hell he wants without asking anyone's permission and nobody even having to know about it. This plan upends most of that up front and all of it once the obvious (and already planned out) mission creep sets in. This is a feature not a side effect. Progressives HATE cars for exactly the same reasons most people love them.

People on the liberal end of the spectrum tend to view taxation in static terms. The rich have a certain amount. You raise taxes on them 10%, you get 10% more revenue. Life is way more complicated than that.

Wealth flees. People cut back in other areas. People hire less. And a bunch of other unintended consequences we can't foresee.

Alternately, the taxes may have benefits that outweigh the costs, thus being part of a tax-paying populace may make you richer. There certainly aren't any near-0 taxation nations I would want to live in.

Conservatives have the reverse problem, they tend to see taxation in infinitely flexible terms. They think cutting taxes will somehow raise more money, as if because rates went down, people are suddenly more willing to part with their money. Life is way more complicated than that.

Wealth doesn't flee unless it has someplace to go. Businesses may spend more. People may actually hire more when taxes are higher. Unintended consequences can be quite complex and counter-intuitive on both sides.

If business taxes are levied on profits then when taxes are high, expenses are effectively subsidized by the taxes the business would have paid on it's profits. If you would lose 33% of your dollar anyway, it's effectively the same as having the cost reduced by 33%. Thus growing your business may be more attractive than distributing dividends to the owners or bonuses to the executives. This is particularly true if capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than dividends and bonuses. And of course, if employee wages are an expense then profit taxes effectively subsidize employment.

Do you eat? Do you grow your own food? Well, if you eat and don't grow your own food, how does that food get to your grocery store?

I don't understand your comment. Every morning, before I wake up, my butler takes the helicopter to the local airport to collect the caviar that is flown in from Russia overnight for my breakfast. He also collects some bread which is flown in from a delightful little bakery in the south of France. Most of the other food arrives at the airport during the day, and so the helicopter makes another trip in the afternoon to collect it.

"Do you know what happened in Jan 2007 that started the decline? Democrats took control of congress*. Don't get mad. Those are just the facts."

Yes, unemployment was at 4.6% in Jan 2007 is a fact. Yes, democrats took control of congress in Jan 2007 is a fact. Democrats taking control of congress *starting* the decline [in the economy not increase in unemployment] is not a *fact*.

From the OED " a. Something that has really occurred or is actually the case; something certainly known to be of this character; he

Second, the amount of percent of tax paid by the public turned into revenue available for the government is significantly different. The costs for the mileage monitoring system mentioned in the article are VERY high. You have the costs of purchasing AND installing a monitoring device on every vehicle in the USA. You have the R&D costs to ensure the system is reliable, accurate, functional on every type of ve

Good for those of us who purchased houses close to our workplace and still have to pay for the roads you use and abuse. The money has to come from somewhere, why not the people damaging the roads? And no, the gas tax is not high enough to pay for the roads. The initial investment was not funded with the gas tax and has been mostly depreciating ever since then. It is about due to be replaced and that is going to cost a lot of money--where *should* it come from?

The money has to come from somewhere, why not the people damaging the roads?

On that note, if we're going to accurately assess some kind of road tax based on who is causing the wear-and-tear, let's make sure we consider:

Weight of the vehicleTire condition/inflationAccelerometer measurements

Really, as long as they considered vehicle weight, I'd be happy. Because there's no way my 2200 lb Civic is causing as much wear-and-tear on the roads as the Canyoneros (4-ton Ford Excursions, etc) I see on my commute e

The fuel tax already covers that nicely. Truckers are using the most expensive fuel. According to the US Department of Energy [doe.gov], both gasoline and diesel are taxed at 12% average. The average cost of regular gasoline is $3.56/gal. The average cost of diesel is $3.91/gal.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics [bts.gov] (in 2008 numbers), the average passenger car gets 22.6mpg, and the average other 2 and 4 wheel vehicle (motorcycles, passenger trucks and SUVs) get 18.1mpg. That's average, everyone will claim "mine gets [higher|lower]".

A tractor/trailer rig gets 10mpg unloaded, or about 5 to 7mpg fully loaded. so, on a hypothetically average trip of exactly 1,000 miles, and equally average driving conditions for all involved...

Avg passenger car: Fuel: 45 gallons. Cost: $160.20 Tax: $19.22

Avg tractor/trailer Fuel: 167 gallons. Cost: $652.97 Tax: $78.36

And lets address his complaint of "In fact the (highway) road damage of one 18-wheeler is equivalent to at least 9600 cars", lets consider what the car to truck ratio is...

Again, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics [bts.gov], in 2000 (the last year this report shows any numbers), there were 133,621,420 passenger cars, 4,346,068 motorcycles, 79,084,979 passenger trucks and SUV's, and 5,926,030 other 2 axle vehicles.

So, 222,978,497 2 axle vehicles, and 2,096,619 truck/trailer combination. So 106 cars for every truck on the road. Consider that those heavy trucks spend far more miles on common routes, (i.e., interstates, state highways, etc) than on the sprawling local roads and community streets. You'll see that it doesn't matter much that they do 9600:1 damage to the highway, they are likely only driving on a very very small percentage of the overall roadways. They only have to repave an interstate once and it's repaired, so the cumulative effect does not equal a 9600:1 burden on the overall paved streets across the country.

Consider your own neighborhood. How many cars drive past your house for every heavy truck. The number probably becomes tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands to one truck.

But don't let factual statistics get in the way of cherry picking numbers to scream about the awful blight of the heavy truck.:)

Not that I'm necessarily for this tax, as the implementation is likely to cause far more problems than it solves, but it's interesting how the removal of externalities makes people crawl out of the woodwork to complain about how they should be able to continue foisting costs off onto others.

The interstate freeway system and associated infrastructure is probably (though I could be wrong, in that there are other areas keeping up, or in that not even freeway infrastructure is keeping up) the only road system c

I wouldn't. A consumption-based tax practically balances itself. The heavier vehicles create more wear due to their greater mass and they pay more into the tax fund because they consume more fuel to move that mass around. There's nothing to calculate or measure or derive. Vehicles are taxed according to their impact on the infrastructure. I realize it's not an absolute "prefect justice for all" scenario but there's very little bureaucracy involved in the current scenario so it should cost very little to implement (or, in this case, maintain). XX cents per gallon consumed. Done. All-electric and alternative fuel vehicles are such a small percentage that it's not worth the hassle of worrying about them at this point.

A consumption-based tax practically balances itself. The heavier vehicles create more wear due to their greater mass and they pay more into the tax fund because they consume more fuel to move that mass around.

No, the fuel tax doesn't even come close to pay for road wear, because road wear is a function of the cube of the weight. This means a 6,000-lbs vehicle causes 8 times as much road wear as a 3,000-lbs vehicle, but of course it doesn't use 8 times as much gasoline per mile!

The whole thing makes no sense. Usually we use taxes to create incentives and disincentives, nudging the public in a direction determined by government.

By taxing gas you create an incentive for people to drive fewer miles and to use more efficient vehicles. I presume these are both aims of government.

Taxing per mile means there is no penalty for using an excessively large vehicle with poor fuel consumption over driving a smaller car that uses less fuel. I don't see any government implementing it in that simple form. It might be different if the proposal were to include bands for vehicles based on fuel consumption or emissions, with higher per mile charges for inefficient vehicles.

One disadvantage of taxing gas consumption or pollution is that we don't usually know how many people are in a vehicle. As a result, a family of six traveling in a minivan may be penalized at the same rate as an individual driving an SUV that has similar gas consumption.

Usually we use taxes to create incentives and disincentives, nudging the public in a direction determined by government.

The purpose of taxes isn't to control behavior or restrict personal choice, it's to raise revenue. Of course, lobbying groups try to move taxation to where it least affects them OR to impose their social agenda on others -- but that's not the purpose of taxes, it's just a natural side effect that yields our ungainly tax code.

When are people going to understand this. It is the principal reason our tax system is so screwed up and unfair.

Tax incentives to build stadiums for mega-million dollar sports teams.Tax Incentives to attract Microsoft/Google/Apple/Ford.Tax incentives to enforce this cause-celebre today, tomorrows darling next week.Tax incentives to force you to use this product rather than that cheaper product.

Then bitch like hell when companies pay a very low tax rate on stupendous pr

One would hope, but I think with a few exeptions, it will pass. Conservatives hate big government, but they hate the little tax payers even more. Look at the flexible/health spending accounts, the one way we little guys can save some tax. They keep taking out things we can use it on. It should be able to pay for any legal medical expenses, including any medications that one deems necessary. The government should not be involved in decided which medical expenses are covered. The little guys almost get

“This is not an administration proposal," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said. "This is not a bill supported by the administration. This was an early working draft proposal that was never formally circulated within the administration, does not taken into account the advice of the president’s senior advisers, economic team or Cabinet officials, and does not represent the views of the president.”

How about you fix the tax loopholes, get rid of oil subsidies, and force the oil companies that for every cent above 2 dollars they charge per gallon, the US government gets 2 cents of it. Bet you it will make more than this plan and oil will miraculously go down to 2 dollars again!

What oil subsidies and tax loopholes do you refer too? Oh, maybe its the accelerated depreciation and manufacturers tax credits....something just about all corporations who produce something can get. Of course Oil does not get Per unit subsidies like Wind, Solar, etc.

Or maybe your referring to foreign oil companies in Brazil and Columbia who are getting subsidies to aid in their production and refining of oil.

Also, remember that the Government already gets more in taxes then the oil companies make in prof

Of course, you realize that thinking like that effectively hits the poor the hardest. Many working poor have cars because they need them to get to work but could not afford to replace them with the new fuel efficient vehicle you want them to. It will be years before the more fuel efficient cars are cheap/used. In that time, the lower-income earners will have seen a disproportionate amount of their already low discretionary spending eaten by the higher gas prices you want.

No kidding. Before you know it, they'll make auto-insurance required by law, just like health insurance!

It is a shame that they no longer teach in schools the difference between state and federal governments and the division of responsibilities accorded each based on the US Constitution. That's got to be the only reason such a stupid comment like this would appear here.

For the sarcasm impaired: the auto insurance laws are STATE laws that require coverage to protect THE OTHER GUY sharing the road with you; the new health insurance law is a FEDERAL LAW that nobody could bother to read before they voted on it that applies to everyone except those who have enough political clout to get exempted from it.

The other difference is that the AUTO insurance laws don't force insurers to cover every trip to the mechanic or replacement of worn out parts, while the HEALTH insurance law does.

What is the difference between this and the already-in-place fuel tax? The fuel tax is even better at metering costs to those that chew up roads (heavy vehicles). This sounds like a solution looking for a cause to me.

Electric vehicles and increasing fuel economy, it's become politically unacceptable for some reason to increase the fuel tax rate which means revenue has been dropping and the drop is likely to accelerate even as our need to overhaul or transportation infrastructure is increasing (average age of bridges in the US is 50+ years even though most were designed for 40 year lifespans and for half the traffic they support today).

If you want to make the most of a diminishing resource like oil, you want those who use the most to pay the most tax. This will hopefully cut down on folks commuting or running errands in GM Suburbans or Denalis. A gas tax is better at doing that than a miles driven tax. And easier to collect.

The fuel tax is even better at metering costs to those that chew up roads (heavy vehicles).

Road wear is a function of the cube of the weight. This means a 6,000-lbs vehicle causes 8 times as much road wear as a 3,000-lbs vehicle, but of course it doesn't use 8 times as much gasoline per mile. That means the fuel tax is still a very bad way to pay for road wear.

That's exactly what this bill is proposing to do! All-electric vehicles are the future, but the roads will still need maintenance in that future, so this bill is adapting to that. Would you rather that we wait until roads and bridges start crumbling and falling down due to lack of funds to change the means of revenue generation which accounts for all-electric vehicles?

You're right, there's no mention of repealing the gasoline tax, so this would result in double taxation of gasoline-powered vehicles. But

It would destroy the trucking industry, would raise prices on everything, crush those in rural areas which are usually poor, push us back into a recession and even the few of our senators with a brain can figure this out and make sure it never happens.

Trucks are exempt because they pay tax based on the mileage in each state. If you're a truck, and you drive X miles through Illinois, X miles through Indiana, and X miles through Ohio, you owe X amount of tax to each state based on the mileage (hence, why they don't collect the tax at the fuel purchase point).

Disclaimer: My father-in-law is a truck driver. I like to ask questions.

Basically there is a deficit, it has to be cut and the national debt has to be reduced. Social security has to be saved as well. This means only one option, we must raise taxes or die.

So then close all the corporate tax loopholes and have them pay their fair share. Stop letting companies like Google [gizmodo.com], Microsoft, IBM, etc get away with playing shell games to avoid taxes.

What you can do however is gain the support of corporations to institute a tax to pay for infrastructure that helps reduce the costs to corporations. If less people are late for work it in theory reduces costs for corporations. If less people have to physically go to work because of telework it reduces costs for corporations. Driving just doesn't benefit the economy all that much and is a necessary evil.

There's no need to further tax the middle class though when the rich and wealthy have plenty of money we can tax. Same with the oil companies like Exxon who pays $0 to the US but pays taxes in every other country they operate in.

Just tax the rich because I'm not rich and probably never will be, so yeah screw them. Maybe the government can give me some of that money so I can do things like go to the doctor. I know, radical right?

So unless we are going to somehow use androids or robots to repair and build roads, we probably should consider taxing by the mile.

We already charge by the mile via gasoline taxes; is there evidence to show that the current level of taxes is insufficient to cover the cost of road building and repair? Or is the problem that a large portion of such taxes is siphoned off to pay for mass transit, bicycle paths, transportation-related museums and other programs that are only tangentially related to road building and repair?

Back in the 50's-80's the Federal Government somehow built a large network of roads called Highways boosting the economy for a minimal increase in taxes. Look at this graph: http://nationalpriorities.org/tools/taxday/breakdown-one-dollar/ [nationalpriorities.org] You see the very first big bar? That could easily be cut down to 1/4 or 1/8 (the UK, the next largest military spender spends 1/10th of this per capita) without affecting actual defensive measures. Since the 60's the spending has doubled (inflation adjusted) and over the la

As long as my compact car would be taxed at a lower rate than, say, an Excursion, Hummer, or 18-wheeler as my car would do exponentially less damage to the road, I wouldn't be completely against the idea.

Also, as long as they tax at time of registration or inspection and don't force me to install and/or pay for a GPS unit to track my movements.

What about the taxes we already pay to the state for DOT maintenance? What about the income taxes we already pay? What about the vehicle taxes we already pay for 'regular yearly use' (at least in NC we do). What about the inspection fees we have to pay? What about tax-title-tag fees when we buy a vehicle? What about the taxes added to gasoline and diesel prices?

I understand the need to ween America off of foreign oil, but is placing heavy taxes on vehicular use really going to do it? Would this policy ex

What about the taxes we already pay to the state for DOT maintenance? What about the income taxes we already pay? What about the vehicle taxes we already pay for 'regular yearly use' (at least in NC we do).

different taxes. if you are complaining about this, may i suggest you petition your elected officials to adopt a flat rate tax. until then, all of this has zero to do with the gas tax they are looking to replace.

What about the inspection fees we have to pay? What about tax-title-tag fees when we buy a vehicle?

you are complaining about state issues. my state doesn't have the same inspection fees as you, nor does my state have the same tax-title-tag fees when we buy a vehicle (and if you are an out of state buyer, there are no tax title tag fees). so something tells me this is going to remain the same b

Why would you want to tax vehicle miles instead of gas used? Taxing gas promotes fuel efficiency AND carpooling, public transit, living closer to work, etc. It amounts to the same thing, yet I get the distinct feeling the ONLY reason this proposal is being floated is because an actual gas tax is seen as politically untenable, despite being more effective, less onerous (would you rather an extra $5 each time you fill up or pay $250 at the end of the year?), and proven to be effective in dozens of other natio

Perhaps the answer is to tax cars by calculation of fuel economy, weight, engine size, tank size etc. and stick them in various bands, e.g. A-F with A being most efficient, F being worst. Don't tax anyone in A and punitively raise the tax from bands B-F. People will buy more fuel efficient vehicles just to avoid the hassle of paying taxes on them.

I was actually trying to figure something like this out here in Rhode Island, where our municipalities tax us quite a bundle on our cars (I pay over $400 a year in tax on a beat-up old Focus subcompact). Anyways, the DMV already knows your car's make, model, and year. I'd like to see the tax be a flat amount, modified by some result of a formula that factored-in curb weight (damage to roads) and mileage (damage to environment/economy). Basically, the goal would be to get as many people into as light and eff

If they deploy an in car sensor, it will be hacked within days, they will have a high rate of "breaking" on their own, and they will be removed and kept at home. If they require it in new cars, it will kill car sales and boost the used car market.

Public acceptance will never happen. GPS tracking is out, the recent iPhone debacle showed that people won't stand for it. Every other method will be defrauded on a massive scale (Disable speedo/odometer, use cell phone GPS for speedometer, for example.)

The proposed “Transportation Opportunities Act” would mandate a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax that’s calculated by installing electronic equipment on each car and at filling stations. VMT calculation and payment would take place electronically every time you buy gas at the pump.

It won't be soon but, at some point, enough cars will be electric that we will need an alternative to the fuel tax. But electric cars don't go to filling stations which makes a mileage tax based on visits to filling stations kind of pointless. It's a lot more complex than the fuel tax and it is even less accurate. Fuel taxes account for the fact that larger vehicles, which cause more damage to the roads per mile, also burn more fuel per mile.

As others have said, it is a lot simpler to just raise the fuel tax. Actually, I don't understand why the fuel tax is a fixed value anyway. If it were a % of the purchase price like ordinary sales taxes, then revenue should stay fairly level as prices rise and usage drops.

I don't see the value in this, it basically means they'd be taxing the people who have to commute to work. I myself have a 30 to 45 minute commute each day. My car is very fuel efficient though (32MPG on average), but why should I pay more than say someone who buys a gas guzzler (10MPG) but doesn't have to commute to work? And the commute thing isn't so much by choice than by it's better than any other offer I've had in my direct area by far.

just increase the tax on gas instead: by that not only do you tax cars by the mile, but you actually have fuel efficiency included in the tax and an actual incentive for drivers to use more fuel efficient cars. And thus an incentive to avoid unnecessary CO2 emission. Also, if the gas or diesel is taxed directly, large trucks will automatically pay more tax per kilometer, which relates nicely to the bigger damage they cause on highways.

Cripes, it wants the government to buy and install a bazillion fancy devices and install them on every car in the country? Well, I know one company that would like to see it pass...

Why is it this stupid idea reappears every 6 months or so? Every time it involves some expensive piece of hardware (GPS receivers for instance) that needs to be bought and installed on all umpteen million cars in the country, instead of the far more sensible solution of just having the yearly inspection guy write down the mileage off of the odometer every time you bring your car in and report that along with your results to the government. It won't work in states that don't do safety inspections, but they could work something out (owner just self reports for instance) that's about a billion times cheaper than whatever technological solution someone is trying to create a market for.

It's not a terrible idea in theory, because as cars become more efficient there is less money collected in gas taxes, but you still have to maintain the roads and better fuel economy does not equal less wear on the roads.

However, if you intend to put a GPS tracking device on every car to implement it, that's where I draw the line. I'm as liberal/progressive/Democrat as they come, but I STRONGLY oppose any governmental program to track our driving. Oh they'll swear up and down that the data won't be used for surveillance, but when has law enforcement/FBI/CIA EVER turned down access to tracking methods or databases? And is it really cost-effective to put a $100-200 GPS on every vehicle in the country?

People ask "don't you trust your government"? Not in general - about some things, but not about this. I hated that Bush started illegal warrantless wiretapping and wholesale monitoring of internet traffic, and I hate that Obama is continuing it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong Obama supporter, but wrong is wrong no matter which political party does it.

As others have already commented, there's already a device in every car that tracks mileage driven - it's called an odometer. Just have the odometer read whenever you renew your registration, have your yearly inspection, or whatever your state requires. If making people give a lump sum all at once is a hardship, fold it into your yearly tax forms or something, maybe let people pay their mileage taxes they owe monthly or something. Keep It Simple, Stupid!

I've never "renewed my pates" in my life. They send me a bill, I send them money, they send me a sticker to put on my plate. If we have to add in an odometer reading, who's going to be authorized to record that information? Am I going to have to go to the DMV every year? That place is already a clusterfuck. Am I going to have to do it when I get my car smogged? That happens every 2 years. Well, it will after the first 5 years or so. Am I going to have to make quarterly estimates or something until that happens?

Just have drivers self report it and make it one of the things that gets verified in the event of an audit. Make the fines and fees exactly the same as if the person had cheated on their taxes some other way. If a car is sold, have a way for the buyer and seller to, independently of each other, submit the mileage at the time of sale and if there's a significant discrepancy have the new owner take it down to the DMV within 30 days to have someone there record it.

Honestly, I don't have any problem with a per mile tax but I have a huge, huge issue with any kind of device being placed on my car. Not only is it an incredibly invasive invasion of privacy, it's also way more expensive and complex than any taxing method should be.

Unless you're walking on unpaved dirt road, otherwise I would think you're inflicting minute damage to the pavement and thus be subjected to a use tax on the pavement.Yeah, as if that makes a lot of sense. But alas we've seen things done by the government that made even less sense before...

They know, knew, and understand that you cannot fix a deficit or reduce the national debt without raising taxes.

Of course you can. You do it by spending less.

And the Walton's and Koch bro's are not going to save grandma, they aren't going to help you pay for your education, and they wont give you money to survive so you don't become a criminal hooligan when unemployed or laid off.

Why should the government save grandma? Paying for education... well, first there's the racket of Universities always incre

>>>They know, knew, and understand that you cannot fix a deficit or reduce the national debt without raising taxes.

Of course you can.Just spend less money. It's how I fixed my deficit, while my wages held steady. Canceled the cable, canceled the cellphone, turned off the heat, et cetera. Same principle applies at the national level - just cut spending on unnecessary bullshit (like wars, studying butterfly sex, renovating congressional offices, and so on).

> They know, knew, and understand that you cannot fix a deficit or reduce the> national debt without raising taxes.

That is just insane. Go find any source of information you prefer and find graphs of revenue and spending over the last few decades. The problem isn't on the revenue side, our problem is we want to spend too fracking much. Trying to solve a problem of uncontrolled spending by finding new revenue ain't going to work. If your spouse is spending like a drunken sailor getting a second jo